Duke Tops UNC, 9-8, on Wolf OT Goal

DURHAM, N.C. — Attackman Jordan Wolf capped off a four-goal performance by scoring the game-winner for the fourth-ranked Duke Blue Devils as they topped the fifth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels, 9-8, in overtime in front of a crowd of 3,887 at Koskinen Stadium.

Midfielder Kyle Keenan tallied his first career hat trick and scored the tying goal for Duke, beating Tar Heels goalkeeper Kieran Burke high to left side, as both teams were even at 8-8 with 1:47 to play in the fourth quarter.

After neither side could convert on opportunities to decide the game in regulation, it was Wolf who was the difference-maker, scoring his goal after initiating the play at X and driving around the cage in full stride to beat his defender and Burke. “I’ve played with Christian Walsh for a while and I knew he was going to throw it to me,” Wolf said.

“He set a pick — once he threw it, I attacked the ball – walked around the guy that played me on (the) top side, I spun and scored.”

Deemer Class and Case Matheis rounded out the Blue Devils’ scoring in a game that had the teams tied four different times and Duke (6-2, 1-1 ACC) playing catch-up to North Carolina (5-2, 0-2), who established separate two-goal leads during the first and third quarters.

The Tar Heels utilized their own small committee of players to counter the Duke offense that Burke helped to contain while making 15 saves in the losing effort.

Jimmy Bitter and Michael Tagliaferri each recorded hat tricks from the near and perimeter areas surrounding the Blue Devils’ goal while Joey Sankey added two of his own against keeper Luke Aaron, who matched Burke’s save total (15), and held on a bit longer to earn his fifth win of the season.

“Overall I was really proud of the effort that our guys put in – the execution, the attention to details, how tough we played,” North Carolina head coach Joe Breschi said. “We know playing against Duke it’s always gonna’ be a slugfest as it has been.”

It was renewal of a rivalry among reigning title holders as the NCAA-champion Blue Devils faced the ACC-champion Tar Heels for the 70th meeting all-time between the two teams.

Earlier in the week, Duke dispatched the Marquette Golden Eagles, 20-9, while the Tar Heels had disposed of the Bucknell Bison, 20-4.

The last time the Blue Devils and Tar Heels met one another was in the semifinal of the 2013 ACC tournament when the Tar Heels outlasted the Blue Devils in an 18-17 – a 35-goal duel.

Defense rules the dayAs many watching were expecting a similar outing, both teams actually began the game very conservatively and played a much more defensive-minded game led by their respective goalkeepers.

Duke had to rely on Keenan’s shot to keep North Carolina’s defense turning around toward the outside as it clamped down on numerous occasions to contain the Blue Devils’ passes to the top of the crease all game.

“They played really great,” Keenan said of the Tar Heels defense. “Their goalie played on his head at moments. It took a lot of work — more than we thought. After a couple of dodges, we had a couple of multiple-dodge possessions before we could crack them.”

The Tar Heels’ Stephen Kelly won the overall battle at face-off X, claiming 13 of 20 draws from Duke’s Brendan Fowler (7-19), but the NCAA championship MVP drawman scraped the ball into Duke’s possession when it needed most, in overtime.

“I thought their face-off guy did a terrific job,” Duke head coach John Danowski said. “He was dynamic and athletic, and we saw that on tape. We thought their good players played really, really well.”

Getting better every dayHaving won 17 of the last 19 games against North Carolina, Danowski downplayed the rivalry aspect of the two teams’ meeting at this point in the season, even as the win-loss implications this year for conference seeding and automatic bids could make a difference later on.

“We just keep our nose down,” Danowski said. “We don’t really think globally yet. We think about that maybe in late April. Now, we’re just trying to get better. You’re just trying to find yourself as a team. You’re trying to figure out where you’re gonna’ get goals from, or who’s gonna’ make saves, or who your starting defense is. It’s always a work in progress, so I don’t know if we really think about that stuff too often.”

For Breschi, who’s been on the losing end far more than he would like when facing the Blue Devils, he kept the focus in sight for what would come next for his team in moving forward. “I like the toughness that we showed,” Breschi concluded. “It’s never easy to lose a game, but I thought our guys really played hard. We may not have executed, but we had great discipline, and in so many facets of the game we played well. I think we’ve gotta’ take from that and improve on and move towards Tuesday (vs. Harvard). At the end of the day, it’s never easy losing.

“The Duke-Carolina rivalry is great. Our goal when we came here five years ago was to make this rivalry a special one, and I think it was a great lacrosse game. Again, it was just tough to leave here with a loss. Both teams played really well.”